


Sharpe's Ghost

by wellmet



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:51:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9821216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellmet/pseuds/wellmet
Summary: James sees a painting of Captain Sharpe who fought in the Peninsular War - and he looks like 006. This is the bad 006 from the film.  James tells John Watson and Greg Lestrade about it.  Sharpe in the TV series was played by Sean Bean who played 006.





	

SHARPE'S GHOST  
Meretseger 2016

Q is a Holmes 

James Bond and his partner were sharing the long leather sofa when Q's mobile 'phone rang. "J and Q's love nest." The caller ID said it was John Watson calling. Even Q used his MI6 title instead of his real name. Anyone would whose name was  
Quarrell. Especially since the Harry Potter films

There was a laugh, John's laugh that Q liked because it made his brother laugh, too. "Hi Q!" John said. "Is James home?" John Watson was Q's brother's partner and he knew what James Bond did for a living so he always checked with Q first.

"Sure. Hold on." Q handed the 'phone to his partner who had put down his book the moment the 'phone rang. James was a double 0, a spy for Her Majesty with a licence to kill and even relaxing at home he never really stopped being on high alert. "It’s John for you."

"Hello, John." Dr Watson was James' favourite brother-in-law's-partner. "What can I do for you?"

"Ask rather what I can do for you," Watson said lightly. "I have been given a pass for the exhibition at the Guards' of paintings and ordnance from the Battle of Waterloo and I was wondering if you had the time to go with Greg and me? The pass is for a pre-public showing. Mycroft pulled some strings knowing I'd be interested. It's this coming Wednesday?" John knew that James might be leaving for a mission but, of course, he didn't say so on an open line. 

"I'm on leave for a couple of weeks," Bond said, "and I'd love to go." He didn't know Greg Lestrade, his other brother-in-law's partner as well as John but they'd met a few times and he liked the quiet, grey-haired DI from Scotland Yard. 

"I'll text the times," John promised and hung up.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

James met Greg and John outside the main gates of the Guard's headquarters. The three men shook hands and John Watson, late of the RAMC, gave Bond a quick look, checking for any visible injuries. When James and Q had decided that they wanted to share a house MI6 had checked out Q's family and their partners. Mycroft Holmes who held a 'minor position in the government' was above reproach and very little checking was required to prove the same thing applied to Captain Doctor Watson, late of the 8th Northumberland Fusiliers and Gregory Lestrade who was one of Scotland Yard's finest. Sherlock, John's partner and Mycroft's younger brother was well known - he was the one who had turned down three offers of a knighthood. And solved an embarrassing problem with a certain Miss Irene Adler. 

The crowd inside the building was thin, this was a special viewing for invited guests only. The three men stayed close together so they could discuss the exhibits. All went well for the first hour and then the trio entered the room where portraits of the men who had directed the battle had been hung. The room was dominated, of course, by a large painting of Lord Wellington and next to it hung an only slightly smaller one of Blucher. Napoleon was there, too, of course, his portrait accompanied by his surrendered sword. 

Lestrade, the defender of law and order, looked at Bonaparte's picture and shook his head. "So ordinary looking a man - out of his uniform I mean - to have caused so many deaths." He shook his head again. "How much easier it would be if men who would do anything to have power over other men really looked like the monsters they are."

James the naval Commander commented, "he was a very good general. His men loved him."

"And followed him to their deaths," John the doctor added. "But, in his way, he did care for them. His medical staff invented the ambulance and they had much better medical care than the English soldiers." 

They moved on to a section of wall where there was a small selection of drawings and sketches of the lower ranking members of the British forces. 

"What the fuck is HE doing here?" James was standing in front of a water colour painting of a captain in the deep green uniform of the Rifles. Heads turned to glare and then away again.

"What are you on about?" Greg demanded in a low hiss. "It's a painting of a Captain Sharpe who fought at Waterloo. Says here on the card that he came up from the ranks; was made lieutenant for saving the life of Wellington." He took in the expression of shock and hate on James' face and pulled him out of the room into a deserted passageway. "What's wrong? Who is that man?" He knew enough about what Bond did to know that the man had enough horrors in his past to make any man slightly mad. 

John had followed his two brothers-in-law and he looked anxiously at Bond. "Are you okay, James?" He reached to take Bond's pulse and was pushed angrily away.

"Leave me alone!" James snapped, trying to leave the two men and walk away.

"Commander Bond, stop right where you are!" John used his captain-doctor's voice and Bond stopped, gritting his teeth but unable to resist the order. "Now tell us what the Hell is going on?" The drawing of a man who had been dead for nearly two hundred years should not have made one Her Majesty's best agents loose his temper and - now - go pale. 

Bond looked around and found a half open door. "In here." 

When the three men were in the closed room James took a deep breath. "He's 006. The man who betrayed my friendship, the friend who let me believe that he had died to save me and 'For England. The traitor who betrayed me and my country for power and money." Bond took a breath that rasped in his throat. "The man I killed nine years later in the bowl of Arecibo Radio Telescope." 

"Shit!" Lestrade ran a hand through his greying hair. "Let's get out of here." He didn't want to know the details but he knew he was going to have to listen to them. He looked at John for confirmation of his suggestion and the doctor nodded his agreement. 

"There's no need for you to leave with me," James rasped through gritted teeth. "Just ring Q and tell him I'll be home late - and probably very drunk."

"Not gonna happen," John stated calmly, leaving no room for discussion. "We are going to leave here quietly and go to the nearest pub. There you will have a drink and then you will tell us how a man who has been dead for two hundred years can look exactly like an agent of MI6."

Not really wanting to be alone James nodded and led the way out of the building. He shook his head at himself. He had come home from that awful mission and preceded to get very, very drunk and start a fight in a bar because he needed to burn off his anger and his despair. Now he wanted the company of these two men. 

The Wellington's Arms pub was quiet and the three men found a corner that satisfied Bond's absolute need to be able to see the doors and exits and John's that they were going to have to keep their voices low. 

John and Greg had beer and they sat and waited for James to empty his double single malt scotch in one go. Bond went for another glass and then spoke, keeping his voice low. "006, Alec Travelyn, was my best friend. We had been in the Navy together and joined MI6 about the same time. Alec loved it - he liked blowing things up and a peace time navy didn't give him much excuse for destruction. Most of the time we worked independently but we were assigned the job of blowing up the dam at Archangel. Alec had been undercover in Russia for months and I think he was allowed to join me in the destruction as a reward for doing a good job. 

"We were supposed to meet up inside the dam, plant the bombs and get out." Bond took a deep breath. "We were pleased to see each other …" he remembered Alec asking him why he had been late … "and we placed the bombs with time to get out. But Alec was captured and the last time I saw him he was kneeling at the feet of a Russian general with a gun to his head. He urged me do my job. He said, 'for England James," and I replied, "for England." I changed the timer on one of the bombs and got the Hell out. I knew the charges would kill my friend and I did it anyway. We both knew the cost of being double 0 agents and in a way the thought of Alec going up on such a funeral pyre made me think it was just the way he would have liked to go."

James sipped at his second glass and continued. "I mourned my friend. I went to his funeral. I saw his name put up on the wall in Vauxhall Cross along with the names of all the other brave men and women who have died for their country.

"Then nine years later I saw him again. His face was burnt on one side but it was him. He'd become a powerful mobster - called himself Janus because the other side of his face was unmarked. He laughed at me and tried to kill me - said it was because I changed the timers that he was burnt. He had already betrayed his country when I thought I had killed him."

John and Greg traded glances. They had both seen colleagues and friends die but neither had been betrayed so horribly. 

James continued. "It took a while but I beat him, saved the world again. We fought in the bowl of the telescope and he ended up hanging from my hand over a long drop. He smiled up at me and said 'for England James,' and let go. I think he was mocking me but I have always wondered if he was sorry for what he had done."

The only way the other two men could show their sympathy was with silence but eventually John said, "but how come that Captain Sharpe looks like Trevalyn?"

Feeling better now he had spoken Bond shrugged. "I don't know. Some kind of ancestor I suppose." 

"We can find out," Greg suggested. "There will be records if Sharpe was married."

But James shook his head. "No. It doesn't matter now. Let Sharpe be." 

John went for more drinks and the three men sat quietly for a long time and then went home. 

Q looked up from his laptop when his partner came home. "Did you enjoy the exhibition?"

Bond leant down and kissed the man he loved, who would never betray him. "We laid a ghost."

Q frowned up at his love and didn't ask. There were some secrets he knew James would never share. He would never ask Greg and John what had happened and they, too, would never tell anyone what had happened. 

"Ghost laying is good," Q merely said. 

"For England," James whispered, half to himself, half to Q. "And for us." 

Notes : Sean Bean who played Sharpe in the series of that name was also 006 - for an earlier Bond. Sharpe married a Spanish aristocratic woman and had a daughter, (the Sharpe books do not say if he had any other children) who he never saw after his wife, who was a guerrilla (the Spanish invented the name) was killed by the French. He later married an English lady who stole all his money. At the end of the Peninsular War , he lived with but did not marry, a French woman who owned a farm.  
I am sure I don't need to say why a man like Q would not want to be anything like Professor Quarrell from the HP books.


End file.
